This Video Reveals Why Thanos Waited So Long to Steal the Infinity Stones

The following post contains SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War, the fourth-biggest movie in U.S. history. So we’re guessing if you found this video about arcane character motivations in it, you’re probably good, spoiler-wise.

Thanos won. He beat the Avengers, killed a whole bunch of them, took all the Infinity Stones, and achieved his dream of wiping out half the universe and living in a hut on a space lake. Good for you, Thanos. It’s nice to see a demigod set a goal and achieve it.

But let’s look past that. Thanos first showed up at the end of the first Avengers in 2012. It took him about six years (and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, times progresses roughly at the same pace as our universe) to finally go after these Infinity Stones. And in the meantime, he gave the one Stone he did have (the Mind Stone) away (to Loki, in the scepter he used in The Avengers). So why did Thanos wait so long? And why would he give away the very thing he wants to acquire? This new video above by ScreenCrush’s Ryan Arey puts together the clues to try to figure out Thanos’ secret master plan.

If you enjoyed this video about why Thanos waited for his big attack, check out some more of our videos below, including our full MCU recap up to Avengers: Infinity War, our ranking of the film’s saddest deaths, and our video essay about how Infinity War may have finally made Thor’s visions from Avengers: Age of Ultron come true. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes.